Microsoft announced the HoloLens 2 this past Sunday, February 24, 2019
Their announcement covered a lot of ground and there are many components that we are excited about. We wanted to quickly summarize those that we found most interesting and give an idea of how they can be used.
Field Of View – This is one that has been long rumored and was the top of many developers/users wish list. Having it DOUBLED, wow! A larger field of view not only affects the ability to design better scenes, but it gives the user a more comfortable, immersive experience – offering optimized visualizations.
Eye and Hand tracking – The HoloLens 2 will now track eye and hand movements. Not only will this enhance ease of use, but there is a vast amount of data waiting to be tapped. We are always trying to improve application flow and once we know how a user is interacting with the application, we can tailor application response based on how the user interacts with the experience.
Foveated rendering -This technology allows for the application to render only what the user is focusing on, thus giving operating systems more dedicated power to boost the quality of only those images in focus. Image quality can be dramatically increased, thereby providing a better user experience.
Remote rendering – “the artist formerly known as GPU streaming…” GPU streaming, the ability to process an image on a remote machine and stream the images to be rendered instead of relying solely on the processing power of the headset has been around for a while, but it is complex. Remote rendering is a new name for this same service with a slight difference – it is more accessible to our applications. Providing easier interfaces for our developers presents the ability to leverage this technology in any application, allowing us to build more powerful applications overall. This will be a great solution for applications where high bandwidth, always on, connectivity is an option.
2k resolution per eye – Clear and simple….better resolution makes for better experiences, no doubt about it!
25 Points of Articulation – After you have used Hololens for some time your finger gets tired – plus users with Arthriitis have complained about it – now with Hololens 2 there are tons more ways to interact. think about instead of air tap on a button for rotation – you take your hands and rotate the object. It becomes a much more intuitive experience.
Comfort – The improvement in the design with the weight previously was over the forehead , now on Version 2 the weight is balanced on the head alot better. For our developers this is a huge relief on neck strain.
In summary we are very excited to be part of the next version of the HoloLens ecosystem and look forward to continuing to leverage all of the features available to us for our customers applications.
